


Stymied in Rock

by koanju (verstehen)



Category: The Tempest - Shakespeare
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-27
Updated: 2009-12-27
Packaged: 2017-10-05 08:04:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/39510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verstehen/pseuds/koanju
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Caliban had rejoiced in the storm that brought the sorcerer and his daughter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stymied in Rock

Caliban had rejoiced in the storm that brought the sorcerer and his daughter.Caliban had rejoiced in the storm that brought them, awash, on his shores and welcomed them fully. He had helped them, shown them his shelter and his food, given them the gifts of grain and wood, and shown the Divine Tree that gave fruit and plenty.

The sorcerer had thanked him for his efforts and studied the tree. The girl, the beautiful beautiful girl, had thanked him in a quiet voice as she drank his water and ate his food and slept in his bed. Caliban had been pleased to serve her anything as she glowed more beautiful than a sunset or a sunrise or anything as lovely in nature he had ever seen. He wanted to touch and stroke her soft dark hair, like the velvet of a rabbit, and he wanted to sniff the strange things that hung around her body, curious as to why she would hamper herself in the wood, leave traces of herself behind for the predators. She called them clothing and made some Caliban. The clothing was his prize, because they came from her, even more than he prized the Divine Tree with its fruits and shelter.

The sorcerer finished his communion with the tree and proclaimed it his. Caliban had said the Divine Tree could belong to no one being but the sorcerer did not listen, could not listen. He took and enslaved the tree and forced Caliban away. He took his beautiful daughter; a creature Caliban loved, from Caliban’s home and told her Caliban was evil and low. He forced Caliban away from her, from his home.

“You are a creature of Earth and lesser than human,” he said in a booming voice that scared Caliban, as though the blue sky was speaking from above. Caliban did not know what he meant. He only knew that the sorcerer was taking from him, taking and taking, taking and never giving anything back. He was forced to sleep on the rocks across the island, forced to exchange the clothes the daughter had given him for something else, something much rougher, forced to do labor for the sorcerer, forced to bow to the will of the Divine Tree.

Everything that he had loved was gone now and the only beauty left was the dark hair and bright eyes of Miranda.


End file.
